Sports
Trust, trash-talk and 'out of control' egos: Inside Toronto's 'Puzzlepalooza'
HOUSTON — An issue of trust threatens to tear a small portion of the Toronto Raptors asunder. Accusations are flying. A neutral tribunal might be necessary.
“I know I would be the first person that she would screw over,” Raptors centre Jakob Poeltl said late last week.
“All my trust went out the window,” he added. “I’m fully calling this tournament rigged — officially in the media.”
“The losers of the group, I think, is who it’s coming from,” said Raptors physiotherapist Amanda Joaquim.
“The egos are out of control. The complaining — holy. The rules are the rules. What am I supposed to do? I just have to enforce the rules. There’s no leeway to these rules. But now people want to change the rules. They want to add rules. I told them, if they want to do that, they have got to run their own Puzzlepalooza.”
The Puzzlepalooza has become a topic of contention for the Raptors, or at least the seven staffers and one player, the 7-foot Austrian, Poeltl, who went public with his match-fixing allegations.
Joaquim is the commissioner of the Raptors’ New York Times puzzle tournament, which is poised to wrap up later this week. The group has competed in three separate mini-tournaments so far — one for Wordle, one for Connections and one for the Mini Crossword. (All three games are owned by the Times, which also owns The Athletic.)
The tournaments are single-elimination, with matchups determined by random draw. Winners and losers brackets follow to determine placement. The winner of each tournament gets eight points, the last-place finisher gets one, with corresponding rewards for results in between. Each tournament takes three days, with a few days of “load management” in between. (When Joaquim was told the term is now frowned upon by the league, she called them “mind rest days.”)
Raptors puzzle tournament tiebreakers
| Game | Tiebreaker |
|---|---|
|
Wordle |
Most correct squares in earlier guesses |
|
Connections |
Completed in most difficult order |
|
Mini Crossword |
Time |
|
Ultimate tiebreaker |
Rock, paper, scissors — obviously |
There are also some, errr, personal touches in the scoring system.
“There are random bonus awards that are given out based mainly on how I feel,” Joaquim said. “There are some that have (actual merit).”
One of the current bonuses is for whoever can beat the crossword score of Jennifer Quinn, the team’s director of communications.
“Even if they’re not competing against her — bonus two points,” Joaquim said. “She’s the queen of crosswords.”
Yes, perhaps some codification of the rules is in order.
The idea took shape at the start of this season, when a “group of nerds,” as Joaquim put it, began sharing their scores in various games in a WhatsApp group. Poeltl’s and Quinn’s competitors come from a wide range of departments within the Raptors: Social impact manager Katherine Allen, Wayne and Theresa Embry fellow Gregory Ho, nutritionist Jennifer Sygo, massage therapist Melissa Doldron, technology lead Brandon Moita and player service and advancement specialist Rae-Marie Rostant. Garrett Temple has entered the chat, sharing his scores, but joined too late for tournament play.
Sygo won both the Wordle and Connections tournaments, with Quinn winning the Mini Crossword competition. They were tied for first, heading into what Joaquim has coined “the grand championship.”
“The rules haven’t been released yet,” Joaquim said last week.
It’s hard to see why there are trust issues here.
Joaquim eventually decided on having a final eight-person tournament as the grand championship, with single-elimination games in which the contestants compete in all three games on the same day. The matchups were determined by seeding from the first three rounds, with an awards banquet to come next week. Poeltl drew Quinn in the first round again. Quinn won the Mini Crossword, but Poeltl won Wordle, getting to “repel” quicker than his competitor. Neither got a line correct in a particularly tough edition of Connections, leading to a rock, paper, scissors tiebreaker. The match was live-streamed to the group, with Poeltl winning and advancing to the semifinals of the championship round.
Reports indicate Poeltl was “a gracious winner,” perhaps a bit of a surprise. Poeltl has been completely above reproach during the tournament. One source said that Poeltl manipulated his time during the Mini Crossword tournament — presumably for his own amusement — before coming clean.
“As far as trash talk goes, I think there are a couple of dark horses. I count myself up there with the trash-talking crew,” Poeltl said. “I know Amanda’s also high in the trash-talking crew.”
Poeltl has been interested in various puzzles all of his life. (Coincidentally, the NBA player guessing game launched after Wordle gained popularity in late 2021 is named “Poeltl,” for rhyming reasons. Poeltl said he has become involved in that game on an official level, with an announcement to come about further developments.)
As with many people worldwide, Poeltl started playing Wordle soon after its release and began playing some of its copy-cats, including Pokedle, based on Pokemon characters, soon after. Game fatigue hit, but he resumed playing once talk of scores took over the training room. He said he plays six or seven of the games regularly, although he is coming at this with a disadvantage — German is his first language.
“It’s just different kinds of problem-solving,” Poeltl said. “You need a specific type of knowledge to be good at them as well. But at the end of the day, what I really enjoy and what I think I’m good at is trying to find the best way to solve whatever problem’s ahead of me. I might not know all the words because (English is my) second language. For Connections, sometimes if there’s a word in there that I just don’t know, then I’m pretty much just done for. At least I can try to make sense of it the best I can, try to work with process of elimination, for example. I think that kind of stuff is really helping me also, just working with the brain.”
Poeltl said Connections is currently his favourite game because it encourages the most creative thinking and reasoning.
“Jak doesn’t just participate, but he was able to reverse engineer what everybody’s Wordle word guesses,” Joaquim said. “He spends a lot of time. He was able to work out our whole four guesses. He was able to figure it out. He is a master at planning and he was able to get two back-to-back perfect Connections games by spending hours upon hours upon hours working out these puzzles.”
Heading into the season, head coach Darko Rajaković said Poeltl was well-suited to running the offence from the elbows, picking out cutters and shooters based on how opposing defences react. Since then, the Raptors roster has changed dramatically, with his assist numbers right around where they were in his final San Antonio years.
Still, the Raptors will continue to use him at times in that role, and Poeltl sees a connection — sorry — between his hobby and profession.
“I think they are very similar concepts,” Poeltl said. “It’s a completely different field, but it’s similar concepts. It’s understanding what’s in front of you and trying to attack it the most effective way.”
Another overlap: Complaining to, and about, the officials.
“I don’t want to put myself out there and open myself up to a lawsuit or something like that (by being specific about complaints about Joaquim),” Poeltl said. “But something’s going on, I can tell you that much.”
These allegations are why Joaquim has stayed out of competing in the tournament. She did not want a conflict of interest to emerge.
“That would be grossly unfair,” Joaquim said. “I would be awarding myself (points). I do send my scores for bragging rights and to show that I would be the supreme champion (if I were) participating.”
(Illustration: Eamonn Dalton for The Athletic; Photos: Mitchell Leff / Getty Images)
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LAS VEGAS – Finn Balor and Dominik Mysterio were once brothers in arms in the Judgment Day. The two helped the faction run “Monday Night Raw” for several years.
As championships and opportunities came and went, the rift between Balor and Mysterio grew. It came to a head when Balor caused Mysterio to lose the Intercontinental Championship to Penta. Balor leaving the Judgment Day left Mysterio and Liv Morgan as the leaders with JD McDonagh, Raquel Rodriguez and Roxanne Perez sticking around.
Finn Balor is introduced before his match against Dominik Mysterio during WrestleMania 42 at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas, Nev., on April 19, 2026. (Ethan Miller/Getty Images)
The latter four chose to ride with Mysterio and attacked Balor on one episode of Raw.
The bitter war led to a match Sunday night at WrestleMania 42. To make matters more interesting, Raw General Manager Adam Pearce made the match a street fight hours before the show was set to begin.
Balor had vowed to bring the “Demon” out and he certainly did.
JACOB FATU PUTS DREW MCINTYRE IN THE ‘REAR VIEW’ IN UNSANCTIONED MATCH AT WRESTLEMANIA 42
Finn Balor is introduced before his match against Dominik Mysterio during WrestleMania 42 at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas, Nev., on April 19, 2026. (Ethan Miller/Getty Images)
Balor made his way to the ring in his “Demon” gear, dripping with red and black paint. Mysterio was in a mask with other Mysterio supporters.
The two then proceeded to beat the crud out of each other.
Mysterio wrapped Balor’s head in between a chair and hit a 619 on him. He tried to pin Balor, but to no avail. At another point, Mysterio tossed Balor through a table set up in the corner.
As many have learned, it’s hard to keep your demons down. Mysterio learned the hard way.
Balor would not give up. Balor clotheslined Mysterio, hit him with a chair multiple times before wrapping his head in between the chair and drop-kicking him into the corner. Balor put Mysterio onto a table and hit the Coup de Grâce for the win.
Dominik Mysterio is introduced before his match against Finn Balor during WrestleMania 42 at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas, Nev., on April 19, 2026. (Ethan Miller/Getty Images)
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Balor excised his own demons, while Mysterio is still haunted.
DENVER — What do you know? The once-stampeding Dodgers have been caged by the Colorado Rockies.
With a 9-6 loss Sunday at Coors Field, the two-time defending World Series champions lost back-to-back games for the first time this season. The Dodgers again couldn’t hold a lead, letting the Rockies tee off for 15 hits.
Nor could the Dodgers keep up offensively at the hitter-friendly park — though they put some pressure on in the ninth inning, when Shohei Ohtani led off with a ground-rule double and the Dodgers scored twice to cut the lead to three runs. Then the new guy, Ryan Ward, made the final out in his big league debut, robbed of a hit and a chance to keep chipping away by a diving Troy Johnston in right field.
Before that, the Rockies — who beat the Dodgers twice in 13 meetings all of last season — chased starter Roki Sasaki from the game in the fifth inning and then ruffled the Dodgers’ relievers. That included closer Edwin Díaz, who came on in the eighth and promptly gave up three singles, a walk and two runs before being pulled with the Dodgers trailing 8-4.
Dodgers starting pitcher Roki Sasaki gave up three runs on seven hits in 4-2/3 innings Sunday against the Rockies in Denver.
(David Zalubowski / Associated Press)
He and Blake Treinen combined to face eight batters without getting an out.
“They both weren’t sharp,” said manager Dave Roberts, who had theories but not many answers — though he did have real concern, especially about Díaz, who recently had his right knee checked out by the medical staff.
Roberts said the closer wanted to pitch after nine days off, even though it wasn’t a save situation. But his velocity was slightly down (95.4 mph vs. 95.8) and so, “today was a tough evaluation,” the manager said.
“It really was,” Roberts said. “Because, you know, I know what it’s supposed to look like, and when it doesn’t look like that, it gets a little concerning, really.”
And losing for the second time to the Rockies, who are now 9-13? Being in danger of losing their four-game series, after arriving in Denver without having lost to a National League opponent, against a club that hasn’t made the postseason since 2018?
It’s well below the bar the Dodgers have set, and it added a bitter note to Ward’s otherwise sweet debut.
Ward punched a big league clock for the first time wearing No. 67 and cranked his first hit off Rockies starter Michael Lorenzen in the fourth inning, lining a changeup to right field for a single that scored Andy Pages, made it 3-0 and got the 20-some members of Ward’s party up, jumping in place, hugging and high-fiving.
“When I was on first base, I got to see them all jumping around up there,” Ward said. “That was a pretty special moment.”
He also singled in the sixth and swung on the first pitch in his first at-bat, a fly out in the third inning.
The Dodgers gave Sasaki a 2-0 lead in the third. Alex Freeland drove in Hyeseong Kim, and Shohei Ohtani doubled in Freeland — and extended his career-best on-base streak to 51 games, moving past Willie Keeler into third place in Dodgers history.
Sasaki went 4-2/3 innings, threw 78 pitches and gave up three runs on seven hits, striking out two and walking two. His ERA after his fourth start: 6.11, worst in the six-man rotation.
The Dodgers fell behind 6-5 in the seventh when Treinen — who was cleared Friday after he was struck in the head by a batted ball during batting practice — gave up four consecutive hits, including a two-run home run by Mickey Moniak.
The result likely will be a minor detail when Ward tells the story years from now about getting the call after first baseman Freddie Freeman was placed on the paternity list.
The Dodgers’ No. 19 prospect and reigning Pacific Coast League MVP spent the last seven years in the minors. Last season, he hit 36 home runs and drove in 122 runs with a .937 on-base-plus-slugging percentage for triple-A Oklahoma City, and he has a 1.020 OPS and four homers this year.
Ward made it a point to improve his chase rate, draw more walks and get on base more frequently, everything the Dodgers asked of him. He also passed the broadest patience test.
“The plate discipline, being a better hitter … he’s done all that,” Roberts said. “He’s improved his defense. But honestly, for me, just not to let his lack of opportunity in the big leagues deter him. That’s easy when you get frustrated and let it affect performance, and he hasn’t done that.”
If anything, Ward said, the waiting made him better.
“I used it to keep going. ‘OK, if I’m not there yet, what do I have to do to get there?’” he said. “‘What part of my game do I need to work on to keep getting better?’
“I used it as fire to keep working.”
That will be the Dodgers’ assignment too.
In the finale of the four-game series Monday, the Dodgers are expected to start left-hander Justin Wrobleski (2-0, 2.12) against Colorado left-hander Jose Quintana (0-1, 5.63).
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LAS VEGAS – Danhausen’s curse may be real after all – just ask Stephen A. Smith and the New York Mets.
While the latter dropped their 10th game in a row, Smith got his share of the curse on Saturday night during Night 1 of WrestleMania 42. Smith was in attendance for WWE’s premier event of the year and heard massive boos from the crowd.
Stephen A. Smith attends WrestleMania 42: Night 1 at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas, Nevada, on April 18, 2026. (Andrew Timms/WWE)
Smith was sitting ringside to watch the action. The ESPN star appeared on the videoboard above the ring at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas. He appeared to embrace the reaction and smiled through it.
The boos came after Danhausen appeared on “First Take” on Friday – much to the chagrin of the sports pundit. Smith appeared perplexed by Danhausen’s appearance. Smith said he heard about Danhausen and called him a “bad luck charm.”
Danhausen said Smith had been “rude” to him and put the dreaded “curse” on the commentator.
WWE STAR DANHAUSEN SAYS METS ‘CURSE’ ISN’T EXACTLY LIFTED AS TEAM DROPS NINTH STRAIGHT GAME
Stephen A. Smith attends WrestleMania 42: Night 1 at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas, Nevada, on April 18, 2026. (Andrew Timms/WWE)
Smith is far from the only one dealing with the effects of the “curse.”
Danhausen agreed to “un-curse” the Mets during their losing streak. However, he told Fox News Digital earlier this week that there was a reason why the curse’s removal didn’t take full effect.
“I did un-curse the Mets. But it didn’t work because, I believe it was Brian Gewirtz who did not pay Danhausen. He did not send me my money so it did not take full effect,” Danhausen said. “Once I have the money, perhaps it will actually work because right now it’s probably about a half of an un-cursing. It’s like a layaway situation.”
Danhausen enters the arena before his match against Kit Wilson during SmackDown at SAP Center in San Jose, Calif., on April 10, 2026. (Eakin Howard/Getty Images)
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On “Friday Night SmackDown,” WWE stars like The Miz and Kit Wilson were also targets of Danhausen’s curse.
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